The Pendragon's Hall

Michael Medved brings some much needed common sense to the discussion of Romney's Mormonism. The Pendragon would never stoop, as Hugh Hewitt did to Mike Gallagher, stoop to calling Romney opponents "bigots." I think they have some justifiable concerns. In the interest of full disclosure, however, let me try once more to clarify my position. People say Mormonism is a cult. That's why I've always heard, and so I tend to believe it as well. But when looking for a president, it is the issues and not the theology that must not dominate, or we Christians are real schmucks for voting for Reagan over Carter. If you want to revive the "infidel" charge used in earlier elections, be advised that the presidents they were most often used against were Jefferson and Lincoln. So I look at the candidates and try to see what kind of policies a Mormon faith brings to the table. I see all Mormons in politics as pro-life, pro-defense, pro-traditional family, and staunch economic conservatives. They are conservative on every issue and what's more their personal lives are impeccable. There can be no charge of hypocrisy against the Right when Mitt Romney is compared to the Clintons. When certain mayors of New York are compared to the Clintons, Bill and Hill come out looking like the defenders of family values. A Mormon contains every single attribute I would look for in a president, if not in a pastor (to the extent that Romney has said he will serve without salary if elected President). Are their beliefs a little weird? You bet! To an outsider. All religions do, however. It's been said, by people who don't want Mitt Romney to be president, that Mormons believe good people will become gods and goddesses on their own planets. I do not know if that is true. But Catholics believe that certain people are so good they can intercede for us lesser mortals with God. Protestants who believe the Bible (see Revelation 2 and 3) believe they will one day be allowed to stand in God's holy temple with a secret name carved on a white stone. Catholics believe they actually consume the body and blood of Christ in their Eucharist, and from some alternate universe they came up with the idea that eating meat on Friday is verboten. Protestants like myself fare no better--John Wesley believed human beings could perfect themselves in this life and came up with a stringent list of rules to ensure it. This is all bizarre stuff--to the outsider--yet people within can give very good reasons why they believe it. The beliefs I have enumerated have led Protestants and secularists to (unjustly) call Catholics idolatrous mystics. So theology isn't really a concern of mine when it comes to the President of the United States. The Republican Party has been told for years that we need to stop having an evangelical Christian litmus test for our candidates. Well here's a way to do it without flip-flopping on the issues.

But in the end, perhaps the best way to explain it is through a business analogy. Two people come to a manager candidating for the same job, one Catholic and one Mormon. The Catholic was a sleaze in his personal life, had never held a position like the one offered before, and the one thing he had to his credit was completely impossible to duplicate at the current company. He had none of the same views as the manager on what the company should do and where it should go. The Mormon, on the other hand, had impeccable credentials, was an upstanding citizen of the community, had held many jobs like the one open before and performed admirably in all of them. He and the manager had exactly the same views on the company's role in the world and what it should do in the future. But...the manager was Catholic. So he chose the first guy. Not only is that illegal, we would all call it bad business sense.